Lighting Designer tools such as beam angle calculation and experimentation, design choices such as gobos (templates/patterns).Calculation and communication including power requirements, circuit information, weight loadings.Noting of data and, as important, changes such as cue lists, focus notes, equipment shortages.(a relevant US term would be Shop Orders)
There are also great possibilities in digital storage and collaboration, reuse of previous hard work and just generally getting a computer to take the donkey work of repetition or maths when planning lighting design and system. These range from A for Accuracy all the way to Z for, well, Z: The 3rd dimension in 3D CAD modelling (a useful part of getting those calculations, angles and distances right). Using a computer to help the lighting design process has many advantages over traditional hand drawn lighting plans and manually collated data methods. If you have ever swapped out more than 150 Source Four Par lenses from a massive 20” box truss trimmed at a height of 7m because the LD should have specified ‘wides’, then you’ll know the cost of shoddy calculations. As the complexity of the design increases so does the number of people involved in making it all happen and the consequences of a planning or communication mistake.
Free lighting design software for mac professional#
Whilst being no stranger to scribbling a lighting plan on the back of a tour schedule with a biro (usually as the first few rigging boxes are coming out of the truck), you may want to present your ideas and technical information in a clear and more professional way. You might also be interested to know that at we teach CAD for production lighting. With an updated article on a popular topic at On Stage Lighting, we look at stage lighting design software and CAD options when it comes to planning and communication in our lighting world in an extended Guide To Choosing Stage Lighting Design Software.